Bowood House

By Virginia Fraser

26 April 2017

With its Robert Adam interiors and Capability Brown
landscape, Bowood is the epitome of an eighteenth-century English
country house, formed by the taste and vision of previous
inhabitants and now adapting gently to the needs of the
twenty-first century...

In the heart of the
Wiltshire Downs, near the landmark Cherhill White
Horse etched deeply into a chalky hillside, lies the estate of
Bowood, which is the home of Fiona and Charlie Lansdowne. The drive
leads you through a dense pine forest, thickly carpeted
with wild garlic, and past a cluster of majestic tulip
trees opposite the golf course. Then, all of a sudden, the
magnificent landscape of Capability Brown's 2,000-acre park unfolds
before your eyes. It was commissioned in 1762 by William Petty, 1st
Marquess of Lansdowne, for a fee of 30 guineas.

There
is so much to take in: the gently undulating landscape with its
carefully positioned clumps of oak and beech; the sinuous lake with
its Doric temple; the extensive Pleasure Grounds behind the walled
gardens; and the arboretum planted with 700 species of trees. The
whole is a feast for the eyes and considered one of Brown's
greatest creations. The renowned Rhododendron Walks, planted with
300 rare hybrids - many of which survive to this day - were laid
out a century later, after the architect Sir Robert Smirke had
added the Italianate terraces at the front of the
house.

Today,
Charlie and Fiona meticulously steer the development of the park
and the gardens with the help of the garden designer Rosie Abel
Smith, constantly working to improve and add to them.

Once
part of the royal forest of Chippenham, the original hunting lodge
at the heart of the estate was replaced in the mid-eighteenth
century by a large house with a portico , known as the 'big house',
and a separate E-shape service complex, including the kitchen,
pantry and servants' quarters. These were later joined together by
a grand drawing room.

The 1st
Marquess commissioned Robert Adam to work on the interior of the
house and to build the magnificent orangery wing to conceal the
service complex when viewed from the front of the house. The clock
tower by Sir Charles Barry and the chapel were added
later.

When
the 7th Marquess and his brother were both killed in action in
1944, the estate passed to their cousin George, who was Charlie's
father. By the end of the war, the house, which had been
requisitioned by the Royal Air Force, was in such a state of
disrepair that the 8th Marquess took the radical decision to pull
down the big house.

Today,
the house is in a charming figure-of-eight combination of the Adam
wing running the length of the terraces and the restored service
areas, incorporating two courtyards separated by the chapel.
Charlie opened the grounds and the Adam wing to the public in 1975,
converting derelict stables into a sculpture gallery, restaurant,
shop and exhibition space. Paintings and memorabilia relating to
his forebears - many of whom served in high office (the 5th
Marquess as Viceroy of India, Secretary of State for War and later
Foreign Secretary) - are on permanent display here.

In
1987, Fiona undertook the task of redecorating much of the house.
Having trained at Colefax and Fowler, she brought with her the
influence of its quintessential English country-house style. It was
an enhancing synergy with John Fowler's legacy, since he had worked
on a few rooms for Charlie's mother Barbara in the Fifties. Fiona
later set up
her own interior design company, under the name Fiona Shelburne -
another of her husband's family names - and has since added a more
modern style of decoration to her repertoire.

As you
enter the private wing through a wisteria-clad courtyard, you step
into a graceful square hall that is brimming with bougainvillea and
scented geraniums. Once a small dining
room, it was converted into a hall in the Fifties, when the
elegant cantilevered stone stair-case was
added and when Fowler introduced two of the columns he often used
to give structure to a space.

He also
decorated the drawing room, which remains pretty much intact, apart
from some inspired touches of Fiona's. The cotton cream damask on
the walls, the curtains and the pelmets are his, the braiding on
the pelmets reflecting the honeysuckle design in the cornice. As a
homage to Fowler, Fiona added a trefoil stool - one of his
signature pieces that he had not introduced at Bowood - in front of
the chimneypiece. A set of eighteenth-century English chairs needed
re-covering and, while browsing at Tissus d'Hélène, Fiona
stumbled upon a sample piece of Fortuny-like cotton damask. She fell in love with it, so Tissus d'Hélène put
it in production and named it the 'Shelburne Damask'. One of these
re-covered chairs now sits in front of the French desk in the
window of the drawing room. It is one of many pieces of French
furniture inherited by the family.

The sitting room that is
used on a daily basis glows, particularly at night, thanks to its
soft terracotta-hued Cole & Son wallpaper,
specially printed from its archive collection. Opposite is the
dining room, once a flower room, office and loo, which
is painted a bracing tomato soup colour - 'so good behind family
portraits, as nearly all of them have a highlight of red
somewhere', as Fiona points out. This room leads out to Lady
Lansdowne's Garden, which is adjacent to the Glass Hall, where the
family eat in high summer surrounded by troughs of geraniums,
fuchsias and abutilons, the table always dressed with Fiona's
favourite scented roses.

The
public rooms run along the whole length of the terraces, a
succession of elegant, homogeneous spaces that are also used by the
family in the winter months. At Christmas, the tree traditionally
stands in the corner of the Robert Adam library under the coffered
ceiling, embellished with grisaille medallions and set off by
Wedgwood vases. Beyond
is what Fiona describes as the 'Buckram red' oran-gery, which is
now a picture gallery where Fiona and Charlie occasionally host
dinners; its doors are the original Adam ones, taken from the big
house that was pulled down.

Upstairs, Fiona really came into her own. The bedrooms
and bathrooms are all decorated by her, with an emphasis on
comfort, quality and understated elegance. She has used floral
chintz on the walls and curtains (one even named 'Bowood' by
Colefax and Fowler) with traditional serpentine and swagged
pelmets.

The
Bowood estate today is a vibrant, thriving enterprise, with annual
garden festivals, dog shows, Christmas extravaganzas and fairs,
weddings, and seminars in the conference hall; it is also a hotel
and has one of the country's most popular adventure playgrounds.
But family life runs in parallel to all this: children and
grandchildren constantly drop in, often bringing their dogs. With
Fiona and Charlie as custodians, Bowood manages to retain an
intimate informality while keeping alive its history - that of a
noble and distinguished family.

The house and gardens are open
from April 1 to November 1, 11am-6pm. An exhibition that celebrates
the 300th anniversary of the birth of Capability Brown is on until
October 31.